


A Feast Fit For A Fort

by hollenius



Category: Tales of Graces
Genre: Cooking, Fluff, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, not quite hurt/comfort because there's no serious hurt, secret forts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-15 19:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13037823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollenius/pseuds/hollenius
Summary: When Richard offered Sophie the use of his childhood secret fort in Barona, he wasn't expecting her to actually take him up on it. What sort of a host would he be if he didn't try to make things as hospitable for his guest as possible?





	A Feast Fit For A Fort

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dreizehn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreizehn/gifts).



"Funny what memories make us do," mused Richard Windor, as he opened a shelf in a cobweb-covered cabinet and pawed through its contents.  
It had been several months since Richard had last been in any of the old storerooms in the Barona Castle basement, but a recent twinge of nostalgia had sent him looking for an old training sword of his that he had used as a child. If it was anywhere in the castle, it was here, he thought, though he hadn't had much luck trying to find it so far. All he'd been discovering was a lot of dust, some spiders, and the occasional ancient tablecloth. The cabinet he was currently going through seemed to have a very ugly floral teaset and some old maid uniforms inside, but little else. He shook the dust off one of the maid uniforms and held it up. It must've been made for a pretty large maid, he thought, because it was almost large enough for him to wear, if he wanted to. (Not that he wanted to.) 

As he began to fold it back up, he swore he heard a faint noise that sounded almost like a sneeze.

It's probably a mouse, he thought to himself, as he finished folding the uniform, put it back in its original place, and continued rummaging through the cabinet's other drawers. 

He thought he heard a faint shuffling sound again, and stopped what he was doing to listen. The sound stopped just as soon as it started, and he waited a few seconds longer, his eyes lingering over the pile of old crates and tarps in the corner across from him. It had to be a mouse...right?

"ACHOO!" said the pile of crates and tarps.

Richard stood up and drew his sword, nervous. And yet, the sneeze sounded somehow familiar.

"Who goes there!"

"It's me, Richard," came a voice that was muffled by the pile of stuff.

He knew he knew that voice. It was...no, it couldn't be...

"...Sophie?"

The pile of boxes shifted, and a pale hand emerged, waving hello.

"You said I could come to your secret fort any time I wanted, Richard, so I decided to come now."

"Sophie, how did you get in there? Never mind that, how did you get into the castle without me knowing about it?"

"Come in here and I'll tell you. There's an apple crate to your left that has a loose side--you can climb in there."

Richard looked around for the apple crate, and got on his hands and knees, trying to figure out what Sophie was talking about. His old training sort would have to wait for later. He tried giving one of the sides a push, but then tried another side and found that it swung in, like a little door. The only way in would be to crawl. He struggled to squeeze himself through the small passageway--it was the perfect size for Sophie, which meant it was too small for an adult male. He felt his shirt snag on a small splinter from the crate as he managed to emerge into the inner chamber of the "fort", which was surprisingly roomy. In the center knelt a girl with light purple pigtails that trailed all the way down to the floor.

"Sorry Richard, I should've realized it would be harder for you to get through there."

"Don't worry about it," he said as he brushed the dust off his knees, "just as long as there's another way out."

He pulled himself over to sit next to Sophie, leaning back against the wall.

"How long have you been down here?"

"Eight hours."

"Eight hours! You should've said something! You should've told me."

"You were in a meeting then."

"You should've told someone else, then."

"I snuck into the castle, so I don't know if they would've been happy to see me."

Richard sighed and put his head into his hands.

"I know I said you could come down here any time you wanted, but I just wish you would let me know. It's dark and dusty down here. Why aren't you off with Asbel and Cheria somewhere?"

Sophie looked down at the floor.

"They're off at some kind of conference in Yu Liberte."

"Were you invited to go too?"

"Asbel and Cheria were invited, and I...I wasn't."

"Sophie, that's awful," said Richard, with genuine concern. 

"Well, Asbel said I could come along anyway, but I would have to stay with Hubert while they were at the conference."

"That's not quite the same thing as saying that you weren't allowed to go with them at all, you know."

Sophie sighed.

"I know, I just...I decided I would rather come here. Because Hubert is Hubert, and you're you."

Richard gently put his arm around her shoulder.

"I'm glad you feel like you can trust me, but I just wish you would've told me. I don't want to leave you hiding down here all by yourself."

"Weren't you in a big meeting upstairs?"

"I wasn't doing anything important. When you come from the right bloodline, people tend to expect you to be a figurehead without letting you do any of the actual work."

"That sounds annoying."

"It is."

The two of them sat there, unsure of what to say to each other. 

"Um," interjected Sophie, "If you don't mind, I'm sort of hungry."

"Oh, right. I still can't believe you stayed down here eight hours by yourself!"

"It wasn't boring. I was busy building the fort. We can eat apples together, just like you said you did in the past."

"Tell you what," said Richard. "If you help me get out of this fort, I'll take you to the royal kitchens, and then we'll be able to eat anything you want."

Sophie's eyes lit up.

"Even crablettes?"

"Even crablettes."

\---------  
"Well, here's the kitchen," said Richard as he came to a stop next to a small door recessed into an alcove at the end of a hallway. The two of them had walked through what had felt like miles of passages beneath the castle to arrive here, and Sophie was still a little out of breath from keeping up with Richard's longer-legged stride.

"I don't want to be presumptive," began Richard, with the air of a proud parent, "but the chefs here will be able to make you anything your heart desires, out of the best ingredients you'll ever taste." He opened the door with a slight flourish of his cape, and stood aside to better allow his guest to take it all in.

Sophie stared, and her jaw dropped without her even noticing. There before her, through that tiny door, was the largest kitchen she had ever seen in her life, with row upon row of tables lined with cutting boards, at which a small army of chefs worked on all manner of animals and vegetables, cakes and puddings, breads and batters, soups and salads--more things than she could even see or name. The ceiling was lined with rows of pots and pans, and the walls of the room were lined with stoves at which a million delicious-smelling things were sizzling and steaming.

"Richard," she cried, almost weeping with excitement, "we're going to have the best royal crablettes that have ever been made."

"We're going to have the only royal crablettes that have ever been made," he replied.

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It's not. It's just...different."

"It means a lot to me though."

Without thinking, Sophie swiftly moved to give Richard a hug before pulling away almost as suddenly.

"Thank you," she said quietly. "For the food, but also...for being a friend."

**Author's Note:**

> It had been a while since I last played through the storyline of Graces, so I was watching various videos of parts of it on Youtube to try to refresh my memory, and a couple of the Richard and Sophie moments that really jumped out at me were the Barona basement fort, and the infamous "royal crablettes" post-battle skit. I figured, why not combine the two?


End file.
